


1943

by ere_the_sun_rises (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comrades in Arms, F/M, Friendship, Prelude, Science and Magic, Team Dynamics, divine intervention, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ere_the_sun_rises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The portal snapped her up and shook her like a doll. She hadn’t been planning on any of this- it was supposed to be her vacation from school, a breather with her siblings before she dove into her PhD. Instead she’d gotten a wormhole, and a one-way trip to the 1940s. And she didn’t even get an adorkable alien in a fez out of the whole thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1943

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Mr. Lee and all the Marvel people. You rock!

            The portal snapped her up and shook her like a doll. She hadn’t been planning on any of this- it was supposed to be her vacation from school, a breather with her siblings before she dove into her PhD. Instead she’d gotten a wormhole, and a one-way trip to the 1940s. And she didn’t even get an adorkable alien in a fez out of the whole thing.

* * *

 

            “How are you feeling?” Dr. Erskine asked her, checking to make sure she was pressing the ice pack correctly. And that was pretty idiotic, she thought, was there really a wrong way to press an ice pack? Then again, it was the forties, before choking hazard symbols and women in pants. Damn, she was going to miss the pants. Wait, shit, right, the doctor was talking to her. The polite, socially apt thing to do would be to answer.

            “Fine,” said Angie, wincing almost immediately when the moving of her mouth somehow pulled on the skin of her forehead, where she was pressing the ice pack to the lump that had risen there after hitting her head on a car falling from the portal. So far the doctor hadn’t stressed the whole portal conclusion; he probably thought she was crazy and a little shaken up, but to hell with him. She was an astrophysics prodigy, masters and almost-PhD and she knew all about Einstein-Rosenberg bridges, thank you very much. God, she missed her rights. Whose stupid idea of a joke was this? Oh, wait, shit, doctor’s talking again.

            “Sit here with Steven for a moment.”

            The doctor left them.

            Angie looked to her left, observed the shrimp head to toe, and nodded slightly at him like all the cool teenagers did (because she was still a teenager at heart.) “‘Sup, Tiny?”

* * *

 

            “Are you really from the future?” Steve asked her, on the way to the super secret base of secrecy in Brooklyn.

            “Was everything really colored beige in the forties? I thought it was just the photographs,” she answered.

            Steve smiled. “For a da-uh, woman you sure are easy to talk to.”

            “I get that a lot.” She turned from the window, caught herself just in time from saying _I swing both ways, kid, I can look at girls or guys with girls or guys._ Right. No LGBT in 1943. Shit. She hated this. Maybe it showed when she slumped back into her seat, because he asked, “You okay?”

            “Yeah,” she said. “Just miss the future.”

* * *

 

            “What kind of steroids did they use?” she asked later, gawping unashamedly at suddenly not-tiny Steve. “Jesus Christ, that’s probably illegal in at least the upper forty-eight states.”

            Steve frowned at her. “Forty-eight’s all we’ve got.”

            “Right,” Angie waved a hand, tossing him a sidearm. “Relax, safety’s on. I wouldn’t throw it active, geez, I’m dyslexic, not stupid. Where was I? Oh, yeah, you haven’t forcibly overthrown the Hawaiian monarchy and bought out the magical land of Sarah Palin yet. No wonder this was the golden age of America. Come on, Stevie. My brother taught me to shoot one of these, I’ll teach you.”

* * *

 

            She had to snort the first time he came off stage, covering her mouth, eyes betraying her mirth. “Nice tights.”

            “Shut up,” he muttered, stalking past her, cheeks flaming.

            “Yes, sir, you bet your star-spangled ass I will,” she choked out after him, snickering as she shuffled in to straighten up the ladies’ dressing rooms.

* * *

 

            He found her in the camp staring at one of the patrol vehicles.

            “It’s a chevrolet,” she explained. “My brother Dean drives one of these. Or, at least, he used to. An Impala. Twenty or so years out from now, actually. I forget what year his was. 1967?”

            There was a long silence.

            “You think I’ll ever go back?” she wondered aloud.

            “I think we can all focus on doing what we think we need to do,” he said. “And if it’s meant to happen it will.”

            “So you’re one of those types?” she questioned. “The ‘fate’s-set-in-stone-and-destiny-is-divine’ and all?”

            Steve thought. “I suppose so.”

            “I always thought you could change your fate,” Angie said, soft. “If you try hard enough.”

            “No one can control time, Angie,” said Steve.

            “And a long time ago somebody said, ‘you can’t drink from that cow’s udder, Ugg,’” she shot back, shoving her hands into the pockets of her borrowed combat jacket. “I want to go home. I’m not giving up on that yet.”

* * *

 

            She refuses to let him go on a rescue mission alone. She’s always wanted to go on a rescue mission, ever since she went on an adventure to Therum to rescue a little blue scientist girl from the big bad robots.

            It’s a very quiet plane ride, made quiet by Howard’s implications of fondue to Carter and Steve pulling the kid card, asking “do you two…” and trailing off because he can’t say _have sex_ or _fuck_ like a grown-up but he sure as hell isn’t about to say _do it_ (probably at the risk of her ridiculing him: “What are you, _twelve_?”)

            “How old are you, really?” he asked Angie, instead.

            “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to ask a lady her age?” Carter asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

            “Not a lady,” drawled Angie, “Twenty-eight.”

            “Really?” asked Steve, sounding surprised. “You look really good for twenty-eight.”

            Angie slumped in her seat, raising her face to the heavens. “Did he just… _Jesus,_ I’m _twenty-eight_!”

            To his credit, Steve looked sheepish the rest of the way there.

* * *

 

            The rescue proved an immense success, and after Angie had been awarded her position (she’d always wanted to be 007, she’d settle for Agent Bouchard instead. Maybe not as cool as a Spectre, but whatever), she sat in Howard Stark’s lab and taught him about testing blood types.

            “See, you can get these at a pharmacy in 2012-” she finished wiping off the forged needle she’d just finished scrubbing, “-but they don’t have special blood testing kits nowadays. There’s a specific sort of material you have to make the needle out of, that it’ll react differently to certain proteins.” She pricked her finger with a slight hiss, and watched it turn a slight hue of yellow-green. “See, B-. I’m part of two percent of the world’s population that’s got it.”

            “Could be useful,” Howard mused, eyeing the needle. “You got the resources to make more of those?”

            “Of course,” she said, turning back to her table.

* * *

 

            She heard Rogers was building a team; an elite recon strike force that was going around scuttlebutt with the name “Howling Commandos.” Still, she was surprised when he showed up next to her at the bar, looked sideways at her and asked if she would join his squad.

            “A girl?” she questioned, lifting her eyebrow.

            “You’re the best shot I’ve ever seen,”  he said, and she hesitated before smiling, raising her glass in recognition.

            “Sure. You want me to join your pack of undies-less wolves? I’ll bite.”

* * *

 

            The montage-worthy adventures of the sans-panties wolves (montage; because their exciting missions often all went exactly the same- Steve frisbees Nazi A’s head off, Jacques blows up Nazi B, Angie takes a headshot on Nazi C, Bucky takes a kneeshot on Nazi D, Angie kill-steals Nazi D, et cetera) changed their tune when they raided a HYDRA train.

            “Backup at the engine!” over the radio. “Need eyes on the engine! We’ve got-” sudden static. “Barnes is pinned in car six! Backup, repeat, need backup!”

            Angie looked out through binoculars, then shoved them at Dugan. “I’m going in.”

            She ziplined in, and misjudged by half a second. When she falls onto the train she twists her leg in a way not meant to be twisted; until it cracks. With a cry she falls, and she can barely hold on, let alone return fire when a HYDRA shock trooper starts unloading his magazine into her.

            Angie figures she’s dead, until the telltale boom and smell of ozone announces backup from her French brothers. By then, she’s halfway to gone. The last thing she sees is Bucky’s dark coat flying down through the gorge.

* * *

 

She woke up on a table with a pinch in her arm that meant an IV drip. When she looked, though, the liquid streaming into her is red. She panicked momentarily, tried to thrash without the strength to do so. Her breathing sped into a frantic wheeze, sucking in too much, too fast. Her lungs were squeezing. A voice from her left. "Hit her again!" She searched the face through vision swimming in black spots. "Out! Get her out, we're losing her! Another dose!" Everything started to fade to black. Her heartbeat slowed, her eyes drifted shut. Outside; "Too close. We almost lost her." Then, nothing.

* * *

 

The second time she woke, the blood bag was gone. She opened her eyes slowly, breathing deeply. Steve was by her side, his head dropped down onto the bed beside her hip, snoring softly. Angie could see every strand of hair on his head, could count the lashes that were sticking together. She lifted her hand- she could move it, then, but something was strange about it.

Steve jerked awake when she draped her hand gently on top of his head. He sat up with a jerk, rubbing at his eyes and looking down at her. "I'm sorry," he breathed, sounding like he was about to cry. "I'm so sorry."

"It was my own damn fault," she told him. "If I'd been faster- or more careful, I-"

"You're under my command," he told her, voice offering no argument. "When one of my soldiers goes down I have to ask myself…what did I do wrong?"

She was upright in a moment. "I am not a soldier." A sudden silence settled after the intensity of her retort. "And Bucky wasn’t either. Maybe the others are. I'm not. If I'm following you it's because I damn chose to. Not on anyone's orders. I'm not loyal to the captain, I'm loyal to you."

Silence.

"Not a soldier," she finished, quieter. She looked at her hands, movedher fingers slowly. The image of a body, a human body falling through a chasm, came back to her, and she closed her eyes. Something thrummed in her veins, and she opened them again. "I guess I survived my transfusion."

"You woke up halfway through," Steve told her, still in his seat, hands wringing slowly. "We almost lost you."

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for letting an engineer perform surgery," she muttered. "My brother was a doctor; he'd lose his license for forgoing an anesthetic."

"Howard's not a doctor," said Steve quietly.

"Evidently."

"He saved your life."

"Right, and almost killed me in the process. Who was my donor, anyway?" Angie threw the covers off, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stands- a mistake, as her head swam with sudden confusion and vertigo. Had the world gotten smaller? Or- her hand shot out to brace against the wall with the sudden weight of the conclusion, the only conclusion.

"There was only one match lined up," Steve told her, guilt coloring his expression; and Angie looked to the beam she was gripping for support as it buckled under her fingers.

* * *

 

She bumped her head a few times the first couple of days. After a full physical she was determined to have grown four and a half inches, put on eleven pounds in muscle, and gained approximately 62% of the serum's regenerative capabilities.

"The immunity's there," Howard explained, "Most of the cellular regeneration's there. You're a bit bigger, stronger, faster." He looked over his report and clears his throat, before stating, "Your breasts have increased about four and a quarter inches in diameter." A pause. "They also appear to have, ah, gained elasticity."

"They're perkier?" Howard nodded. Later, looking extensively, she determined that they're also uneven.

She had to pretty much re-learn everything; adjusting to her newfound strength in everything from holding a glass to pulling a trigger. Gradually, though, she learned to utilize the reflexes the serum gave her; and other benefits like enhanced senses, sharper eyes, increased skin sensitivity with lowered pain threshold, and just plain strength. She could probably have run a marathon straightaway- her metabolism worked in overdrive; everything did- she was hungry constantly. With all body systems running at four times what they used to, everything was on a much shorter cooldown timer than before. It upped her sex drive too; before she'd been feeling the doldrums of thirty, now it was like being seventeen again. It almost drove her to asking Steve if it was the same for him, but after she started cataloging his timely disappearances throughout the day, she noticed a pattern and confirmed her own hypothesis. He was twenty-six or so anyway, so he probably had it worse.

She barely had time to get used to being Angie on superhero steroids before they were preparing to hit the main HYDRA base. She was checking her gun to make sure it was ready when Steve came up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "I want you coming in with me."

"Hitting the front?" She asked.

He nodded. "You're the only one who's protected enough from that kind of heavy fire to join the vanguard."

She was quiet for a long moment, before she nodded. They shook hands. "Whatever I've said…" she started, then half-smiled. "It's been good serving with you."

“You say that like we're not coming back," he said, smiling.

"Yeah, no, I mean…" she sighed. "Just…it's been good, you know?" _And it's 1945, our time's almost up. What do we do then, at least until Korea breaks out?_ "Hell, it isn't sunshine and bunnies. But it's ours."

"Okay, come on. Stop that." Steve claps her on the shoulder. "We'll make it out. We'll beat 'em down. I'll see you on the other side. Right?"

"Right," Angie said. She took proffered hand, and squeezed it. "Tell anyone I rode bitch and you're dead."

Steve laughed.

* * *

 

They rode up, through fire and bullets, to the front door, and were brought at last before the infamous Red Skull. "Arrogance, though not a uniquely American trait…" he trailed off, "one is hard-pressed to find a larger source anywhere else."

"Uh, France?" pipes Angie. "Oh, right, we took it back from you."

The Red Skull beat them around a bit ("I could do this all day," Steve says), but he was interrupted by the timely arrival of the rest of the Commandos, and the charge of the SSR at the doors. He fled for a huge plane stocked with bombs, and as the juggernaut took off, Angie and Steve hopped into a car with Carter and Phillips; who burned the rubber chasing the dreadnought of death down the runway. "Wait," said Peggy, just before they're about to jump. She grabbed Steve and planted one straight on him. He blinked dazedly for a moment, before Phillips called: "I'm not gonna kiss ya!"

Steve jumped. Angie watched him climb up, then turned to their driver. "Bye, Colonel," she said, and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "See you on the other side."

She jumped up and follows Steve.

* * *

 

They fought the Red Skull in his cockpit. In the end it was the Jell-o cube of destiny that did him in- he grabbed it and a wormhole opened up, showing distant stars before he was vaporized into outer space.

The plane's superbombs were ready to drop, and the craft was on a crash course with New York City. "There's no time," Steve said, over the radio. "I've got to put her in the water."

Angie sat suddenly. First she wanted to cry. Then she still wanted to cry, but out of relief. There would be no "what now" for her, after the war, in a world that belonged to her grandparents. Perhaps she would see her mother now. There would be no trying to learn this new enhanced body of hers; no fruitless search for love. Just a crash into the arctic circle, and no more. When the radio cuts off Steve comes to hold her; and she grips to him tight in return. Her last prayer is for her brothers and her sister, to keep them well, wherever they are.

 

She woke up a long while later. It was cold. Bitterly cold. It hurt to open her eyes. The crackle was probably her eyelashes breaking as she opened her eyes; frozen solid. She couldn't feel her legs. Steve is lying there, still next to her; knocked dead cold, probably long dead already.

Somehow, the bleak hopelessness of the arctic preceded her acceptance, and she wept bitter tears that were like fire on her face, until they too froze. And finally, an obliterating darkness that promised an end to the pain.

* * *

 

When next she opened her eyes, it was warmer. She was in a soft bed, and someone was sitting next to her, watching her, wide-awake.

Her vision was blurry at first. It slowly cleared, and she blinked against the light streaming in through the window. Angie gasped softly when she recognized the face in the chair; her brother, her cynical brother who tended bar because he refused to go to college. “Dean.”

“You’re here,” he told her, putting his hand over hers, smiling suddenly, eyes glittering. “God, we found you, you’re here.”

“Where’s here?” she asked. “What year is it?”

“New York City,” he said, “2012.”

She let go of his hand, falling back into the pillows with a huge, sudden sweep of relief. There was more; she knew that. There’s always more. But for now, it was good to be back.


End file.
